HC Deb 10 February 1966 vol 724 cc588-9
7. Mr. William Hamilton

asked the First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Economic Affairs if he will refer to the National Board for Prices and Incomes recent increases in food prices, especially the increasing practice of concealing price increases by reducing pack sizes.

Mr. George Brown

No, Sir. Recent reports of increases in food prices have been greatly exaggerated and I see no need for a reference at the present time.

Mr. Hamilton

Can my right hon. Friend explain what steps his or any other Department takes to ascertain the extent of the practice of perhaps keeping prices steady, but reducing the size of the pack or whatever it might be? Is that taken into account when the cost-of-living or retail price index is formulated?

Mr. Brown

As I told my hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Joyce Butler), who asked a similar question a little while ago, we have done our best to make very close checks through the Departments responsible, in this case the Board of Trade and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and we have used information which we can get in other ways. I have no information which leads me to believe that at the moment this is a serious or widespread practice. Indeed, in some recent cases price reductions have been made by increasing the size of packs. The point in all these things, as Lord Sainsbury said on television the other night, is that one has to balance the ups and downs and not concentrate on one or the other.

Mr. William Clark

Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that industry generally has played the game in absorbing increased costs by maintaining prices or reducing them, and is not this rather one-sided, as wages have gone up 8 or 9 per cent.?

Mr. Brown

No, wages have not gone up. Like so many of his hon. Friends, the hon. Gentleman mixes up earnings and wages. One wants earnings to go up. How is one otherwise to get people to work harder and produce more? One has to examine why earnings have gone up and whether increases reflect increased productivity. To a large extent, both sides have played the game and if right hon. Gentlemen opposite would concentrate a little less on trying to prove that they have not, we might get more success with those who are not playing the game.